Giving up and picking up habits (and yoga)

I’ve been thinking extensively about my New Years resolutions for 2015 and my successes and failures in my resolutions for 2014.

I’ve decided it all pretty much comes down to one thing: being the person that I want to be. And that, for me, is all about picking up the habits that I want, and ditching the habits I don’t want. In 2014, I managed to ditch one habit I hated and pick up a good one. The one I ditched was tearing my fingernails (for the first time in my life I have nice looking fingernails) and the one I picked up was thinking about fitness. It doesn’t seem like much, but for me thinking about something constantly is the best way to guarantee that I’m going to follow through on it.

So. I’m going to aim to pick up one habit and ditch one habit each month this year (they say it takes 28 days to acquire or lost a habit – takes me longer but we’ll work with that). For January, I have picked up a yoga habit, and I have ditched my going to bed late habit.

In February I hope to ditch my habit of being late, and pick up the habit of drinking water.

What habits could you stand to lose? And what habits would you like to gain?

Goal #1 – Fitness

My first goal, is fitness. I know, not particularly original. I really love hiking, and one day would like to climb the highest mountains on each continent. At least. Really, I just love getting away and into the wilderness and the ability to carry everything I need to survive. I also love kayaking, rock climbing and abseiling, swimming, and just being outdoors in general.

When I was little I was very involved in a lot of sport: swimming, cross country running, netball, soccer (football) and riding my bike every weekend. Now though, study and work have taken over everything and I spend more time than I would like in front of a computer, and eating (especially chocolate). I am still not overweight, I’m fairly normal really, and I don’t have any major body image issues (outside of the usual), but my fitness is almost non-existent.

I want to improve all areas of my fitness. I am a member of a gym, and I have sessions with a personal trainer, although both of these are more sporadic and less focussed than I would like. I have had both of these since November 2013. Now that the major part of my study for the year has wrapped up I want to work on getting into really good habits and a routine for fitness.

I want to come up with a plan to build strength and muscle at the gym, and combine it with other cardio exercises such as running. At this stage, my plan looks something like this:

Monday – Walking/running
Tuesday – Training session
Wednesday – Bootcamp/Gym
Thursday – Gym
Friday – Walking/running
Saturday – Bootcamp #2
Sunday – Gym

My gym sessions are based on a plan from my trainer, they are fairly rounded and are a full body workout. The bootcamps are a great combination of strength and cardio, and they’re also a bit social (only a bit) which works well for me.

I do also wear a Jawbone UP, which is helpful for tracking what exercise I do. Basically I aim for 10,000 steps every day, although I’m making an agreement with myself that if I get to 20,000 I don’t have to have a gym session that day.

The goal in figures is like this: I want to be able to carry 30kg (66lb) for 20km (12mi) of steep terrain fairly easily. I will test this as often as I can by going hiking with my partner and his friend.